Texts in Conversation
Deuteronomy 4 stresses that Israel heard God from the fire without seeing a form. The Apocalypse of Abraham echoes this restriction in heaven, where Abraham hears God’s voice and sees fire, light, and angels but no visible figure of God.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
Deuteronomy 4:12
Hebrew Bible
11 You approached and stood at the foot of the mountain, a mountain ablaze to the sky above it and yet dark with a thick cloud. 12 Then the Lord spoke to you from the middle of the fire; you heard speech but you could not see anything—only a voice was heard. 13 And he revealed to you the covenant he has commanded you to keep, the Ten Commandments, writing them on two stone tablets. 14 Moreover, at that same time the Lord commanded me to teach you statutes and ordinances for you to keep in the land that you are about to enter and possess. 15 Be very careful, then, because you saw no form at the time the Lord spoke to you at Horeb from the middle of the fire.
Apocalypse of Abraham 19:4
Pseudepigrapha, Apocalypses
4 And while He was yet speaking (and) behold! the expanses opened, and beneath me the heavens. And I saw upon the seventh firmament upon which I stood a fire widely extended, and light, and dew, and a multitude of angels, and a power of invisible glory over the living creatures which I saw; but I saw no other being there. 5 And I looked from the mountain in which I stood [downwards] to the sixth firmament, 6 and saw there a multitude of angels, of (pure) spirit, without bodies, who carried out the commands of the fiery angels who were upon the eighth firmament, as I was standing suspended over them. 7 And behold, upon this firmament there were no other powers of (any) other form, but only angels of (pure) spirit, like the power which I saw on the seventh firmament.
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Notes and References
“... The choice of the name Horeb instead Sinai reflects the author’s utilization of
Deuteronomistic traditions. This is borne out throughout the rest of the text, which contains the
incorporation of Deuteronomistic language and motifs, most notably regarding the absence of
anthropomorphism and its substitution with God’s Name, a rational approach to cult and ritual,
and its rhetoric concerning idolatry. ...”
Paulsen-Reed, Amy Elizabeth
The Origins of the Apocalypse of Abraham
(p. 176) Harvard Divinity School, 2016
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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